BOLLINGER COUNTY. This county is situated in the southeast corner of the State, and was created in 1850, principally from Cape Girardeau. The first settlement made in the territory now composing this county was in 1800 by North Carolinians. The general surface of the county is broken, but the land is fertile and well timbered. The usual yield per acre is as follows: Corn, 75 bushels; wheat, 30 bushels.; rye, 25; barley, 30; oats, 30; buckwheat, 20; potatoes, 300; onions, 100 beets, 50; carrots, 40; turnips, 200 bushels; timothy, 2 tons; clover, 1 ton; Hungarian grass, 1 ton; and peaches, pears, and apples in abundance. The principal market is at Cape Girardeau, on the river, thirty miles distant, to which point a gravel road is being constructed.
Beds of iron ore exist in the county, but have never been worked. There are 6010 acres of unsold school lands in the county.
Population of Bollinger in 1860, 6196.
Mr. F. Woolford, at Patton Post-office, has discovered in Bollinger County immense quantities of kaolin, which is so highly prized in Europe for the manufacture of porcelain ware; also, cornish stone for the manufacture of iron-stone china ware. He has also discovered pipe or ball clay of a good quality, and extensive deposits of the best quality of fire clay, which he infers is well adapted to the manufacture of fire bricks or good "glass pots," as it has been subjected to 140 degrees of Fahrenheit without affecting it in the least. Also an abundance of pure quartzose sand, well adapted as a source of silex in the brazing and glazing of china and porcelains, and which would make the finest description of glass. Mr. Woolford concludes his communication thus: "Now I would just ask, how long shall we be dependent upon Europe for our ware which spreads or furnishes the tables of our elegant and magnificent hotels, and every private house, even to the humblest cottage in the land? Bristol would be a good point or location for the establishment of a regular factory for the manufacture of such wares as would be wanted in this western country. We have cheap building lots, cheap fuel, cheap labor, cheap materials, in a healthy place, and in another year we will have a good gravel road to the river."
DALLAS, the county-seat, contains 300 inhabitants, of whom there are lawyers, 3; physicians, 2; merchants, 5; grocers, 2; druggist, 1; blacksmiths, 2; saddler, 1; hotel, 1; carpenters, 3. There is one steam flouring-mill; also one Missionary Baptist Church, with some 30 members, of which Rev. Geo. W. Coke is pastor. Dallas was incorporated December 6, 1855. (Parker's Missouri as it is in 1867..., 1867)